All Wired Up!

This past weekend I was able to pretty much finish the guitar. With a little guidance from a friend I got the bridge and tailpiece installed. That was the last big hurdle. With that done, I was able to attack the wiring. Had a little trouble with that and may go back and do it over to clean it up a bit. Once I had strings on it i played it for the first time! She sounds GREAT! I played it until about 2:00 Sunday morning. Today i got the grover "eagle" strap buttons installed. All that's really left is to do some more hand buffing to it and to make and install a truss rod cover. Last thing will be the name... I have some ideas in mind but nothing decided on yet.

Polishing and Final Assembly

The month long wait is over! I spent the past couple of days wet sanding the nitro finish down flat and level. Today, the guys at Little Rock Frets let me use their mandrel buffer to do the polishing. After about 2 hours of polishing the guitar was mirror smooth and shiny. I couldn't be happier with the end result for my first ever guitar! After the machine polish I had to spend about an hour hand buffing it with swirl remover. I think my arm may fall off after that! Tonight I mounted the Grover tuners and the pickups. I also shaped and mounted the nut. Of course, the pickups will have to come back out in order to wire it but the mounting holes are now situated. If everything goes as planned, I will be PLAYING this guitar tomorrow!

Wet sanding

The wait is over!!! Started the wet sanding process today! Took about three hours of continuous sanding just to get the initial flattening done. Next is to sand again with a finer grade paper to remove scratches. Pix in the next post! Hard to capture some of the details. Even for a pro!

A Light at the End of the Tunnel

Whew! The past few weeks really were tough! Finally this week I can start the wet sanding and polishing processes. The end is near! I can hardly wait to play her for the first time! Will be making a you tube video of the first playing!

waiting.....

So it hasn't even been ONE week yet and I'm already getting tired of waiting for the lacquer to cure completely. I took the guitar by Little Rock Frets to show them the progress. While I was there, I learned a new word... seems like an appropriate place to use the word because my guitar sure does have some CHATOYANCY going on. What is chatoyancy? ask wiki

"Chatoyancy can also be used to refer to a similar effect in woodworking, where certain finishes will cause the wood grain to achieve a striking three-dimensional appearance.[1] This effect is often highly sought after, and is sometimes referred to as "wet look", since wetting wood with water often displays the chatoyancy, albeit only until the wood dries. Oil finishes and shellac can bring out the effect strongly."

Getting Shiny!!!

7 coats of clear lacquer and she's starting to shine! The finish already always looks wet so I am STOKED to see how she looks when polished and buffed out! I've got several more coats to go before I'm done spraying. Typically you get 3 to 4 coats a day if you wait like you're supposed to between them. After that, it's 30 days of WAIT before I can finish it.

6 Coats

Today I sprayed coats 4,5, and 6 of the clear gloss nitro lacquer. After the 4th coat, i started noticing a couple of small runs. one on the back of the head stock and one on the top "horn" of the body. I believe after letting the guitar dry at least 12 hours i should be able to do a light wet sand over those runs and and be good to go. Time to hit up a couple of forums for more education before i proceed. I keep reminding myself that this is my FIRST guitar build so imperfections are likely, however... i don't deal well with that so i'm sure as heck gonna try to get as close to perfect as I can. Overall, I'm excited with the results this far! Stay tuned!

unexpected delay

Well, I am not one to complain about having a lot of business to keep me employed, but sometimes work just gets in the way of the fun stuff! December was really busy but we made it through the holidays and are ready for 2012. Back just before Christmas I ordered what would become a temporary spray booth to do the clear coat. It came in a couple of weeks ago but was missing some parts. I waited another week to get the parts and still didn't get all of them. Finally this weekend I got it set up. Next was to get a humidifier setup in the room and a hygrometer to measure the humidity levels in the spray booth so I can keep it consistent during the process. Today I sprayed the last coat of sanding sealer on the guitar and will likely put the first coat of clear nitro finish on tonight. Doing more research now to make sure I know what i'm doing before I get to spraying!